What Is Democracy?

Democracy is the government of the people by the people. It is achieved through the election of two separate powers, one legislative, and the other executive. The authority, rights, and obligations of these two powers are determined by a constitution or general law, which may differ slightly from place to place, depending on the prevalent societal values and traditions. Despite the fact that this ideology is very old (Plato had written about it thousands of years ago), it was not truly implemented in a form close to the idea suggested by democracy until after the American war of independence. When the American people entered into independence, the majority of them were English and were opposing the occupying country, or mother England.

It may be best that I leave it to Martin Dodge, a citizen and scholar of democratic America, to describe democracy with regards to the source of modern democracy. He says:

Democracy has come because people want to be free.... American democratic system did not come by itself; it had to be fought for… Democracy makes the people sovereign... it gives us lots of opportunities... it makes us individually responsible... it provides the way to endless growth.”

Then he adds:

The form of society with which we in America are most familiar is DEMOCRACY. Since most of us have never lived under any other form, we tend to take DEMOCRACY for granted. We forget that DEMOCRACY was a long time in the making. It took many hundreds of years of struggle to establish it. DEMOCRACY has come about because we want to be free. We don't like to be “shoved around.” The idea of DEMOCRACY is that the people shall govern themselves. They shall not be “subjects”-the people come first, not “the authorities.” Under DEMOCRACY society governs itself for itself. In a real DEMOCRACY, we the people are most important. The government is only as important as we say. If we look back into history we find that this idea has not been practiced very much in the past. People have been ruled by kings, emperors, or dictators. These rulers usually gave to their subjects few rights or privileges and no voice in government. The people had little protection. They could be taxed, arrested, imprisoned, even executed at somebody’s whim. DEMOCRACY originated in ancient Greece. But its roots which are most important in our modern world were planted in England about 700 years ago. In

1215, King John signed the Magna Carta. He didn’t want to do this. It was admission that other people also had power. Rulers and government officials are always reluctant to give up power. Once they have secured it, they want to hold on to it. But Democracy requires that power shall lie with the people. In the case of Magna Carta the English people started the long series of events which finally led to the establishment of democratic power. How slow this process was! It was four hundred years from the date of the Magna Carta until the time that Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), speaker of the British House of Commons, dared to declare that royal proclamations were contrary to law and therefore not binding. But thus another important step had been taken in the direction of self-government. England became the cradle of modern Democracy, but she did not extend its privileges fully to her colonies in America. Restrictions on the American colonists, instead of killing liberty, increased their desire for it. As we all know, this started a revolution. It resulted in the founding of the world’s greatest democracy- the United States of America. Here we have proved the power and worth of democratic principles-expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and in those amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. No one believes that we have arrived at the perfect state. But how much of our happiness, our liberty, our progress, our prosperity, Our national health and welfare we owe to our democratic form of government-that is something the reader should thoughtfully weigh. In thinking of DEMOCRACY, keep in mind that our democratic system did not come about by itself. It had to be brought about.12

He concludes by saying:

Thus DEMOCRACY provides the way for endless growth by forever giving its members a fuller life as a reward for their individual efforts.13

Any rational and impartial person will admit that the democratic doctrine has defeated all other political doctrines intellectually before actually defeating them politically in Europe and in some countries in South America, Asia, and Africa. This is because all of these doctrines stem from a single reality, which is that authority is exclusively held by a group or individual. This group or individual, and the deviant ideology they normally hold, are erected as gods, legislating and passing laws that the people must implement without objection. It is both ridiculous and deplorable that many dictatorial and fascist ruling regimes today claim to be democratic, organizing fictitious referendums, pledges, or elections in order to demonstrate this. It is the greatest proof that all other ruling regimes have been defeated by the democratic doctrine. It also explains why they took to courting it, and why everyone is claiming to have reached it overnight-or at least to be on the path towards it.

12 Martin Dodge, Know Your Isms, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1951), 16-20.

13 Ibid., 25.

Even the intellectual religious doctrines took to courting the democratic doctrine and claiming to be democratic. Unfortunately, they are like the pigeon that had admired the crow for its bigger size and took to imitating it. It was no longer a pigeon, but it could not become a crow.

I do not see any doctrine today contesting democracy argument for argument, and proposing a well-composed idea worthy of being adopted and ranked as a true ideological contender to democracy, except for the doctrine of the Awaited Reformer. This doctrine is existent in Judaism, represented by Elijah pbuh; in Christianity, represented by Jesus Christ pbuh; and in Islam, represented by al-Mahdi pbuh. The awaited reformer is also found in other religions, without the specification of a particular person.